Description

Gorf is a game that consists of five levels:

The first level called Astro Battles has the player's ship behind a defensive shield, defending against an alien attack. The level is a top-down view, with the player's ship and shield on one side and the aliens on the other side; this level bears the most resemblance to Space Invaders.

The second level called Laser Attack is made up of a formation of ships, with some that swoop down and a laser that fires at the player's ship. Bonus ships also tend to appear in this level.

The third level is called Galaxians, and as the name suggests it is very similar to the game Galaxian with ships constantly dive bombing the player's spaceship. This mission only appears in the Arcade version.

The fourth level called Space Warp, has the player entering hyperspace.. The viewpoint switches from a top-down view to a behind-the-ship view. One by one, alien vessels will come out and fly in a circular formation shooting at the player's ship with the players goal being to destroy each one.

The fifth and final level is called Flag Ship. In this level, the player does not fight a wave of enemies, but a single one which happens to be a large Flag Ship with a weak spot which is its core. Hitting the weak spot will instantly destroy it, but the player must first shoot through a similar shield that the player had in the first level.

Finishing the game increases the player's rank and starts the game over at level 1 with a faster game speed for more challenge.

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Planned sequel

A prototype sequel to Gorf titled Ms. Gorf exists only as source code stored on a series of 8-inch floppy disks that unfortunately can't be compiled apparently due to the obscurity of the programming language it was written in (Forth) and being done in a software environment that cannot be reproduced. However, some gameplay footage of the the game exists in a demo reel of a never aired television show Wired In.

References of the game

Arcade machine play screens of Gorf can be seen in these movies - 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and 1983's Joysticks. An arcade cabinet can also be seen in 2006's The Benchwarmers.

Title

The programmer called it Gorf since it's Frog spelled backwards. It is also an acronym for 'Galactic Orbital Robot Force'.